Gardening Terms P

Common and not so common garden terms you may hear or read about when dealing with gardening.

This list is by no means a complete collection of horticultural techniques and terms.

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Gardening terms P

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P Gardening Terms

palmate: Divided into leaflets or loves in the manner of a hand.

panicle: Loosely branched flower structure, usually cone shaped with flowers opening from lower section upwards.

parallel venation: Almost exclusively in monocot leaves, a pattern in which all veins run approximately parallel to each other, either from the base of the leaf or from the midrib to the margin.

peat pot: A seed starting container made from compressed peat and other fibrous materials.

pedicel The stalk of an individual flower.

peduncle: The stalk of an inflorescense, a group of flowers.

perennial: A plant that lives year after year. The foliage dies back in the winter time but the roots live to start the plant over again the following year.

perfect flower: A flower that has both female and male reproductive parts.

periderm: Technical term for bark; it consists of cork, cork cambium, and any enclosed tissues such as secondary phloem.

pergola: An overhead structure that consists of columns and cross beams that provides shade and also support for vines.

perlite: Lightweight volcanic mineral that is used as a growing medium.

persistent: Remaining attached. Gardening terms that means the leaves, fruit or seed pods stay on longer than typical.

pesticide: Substance used to control insects, weeds, fungus and any other garden pests.

petals: The appendages, usually colored, on a flower.

petiole: The stalk of a leaf.

phellem: Technical term for cork.

phloem: The portion of vascular tissues involved in conductin sugars and other organic compounds, along with some water and minerals.

phosphate: A form of phosporus (P) that assists in strong root growth in plants, one of the three main nutrients in fertilizer.

photosynthesis: Process of creating carbohydrates in the chlorophyll containing tissues of plants exposed to light.

phylum: One of the not so essential gardening terms used for any large subdivision of the plant or animal kingdom.

pinching: Removal of the top part of a stem to encourage side buds to grow creating bushier plants.

pine straw: Dead pine needles which are used as a mulch.

pinnate: Compound leaf, with leaflets arranged on opposite sides of a common stalk.

pip: Individual underground root stock from plants like lily of the valley and the tightly curled leaves seen when hostas first emerge in the spring.

pistal: The female part of the flower it has an ovary, stigma and style.

pith: The spongy wet tissue you find inside a stem.

planting strip: The area in front of your house that lies between the sidewalk and the curb or street.

pollard: A style of trimming trees where the main branches are cut back near the trunk so that a small crown is formed by the many small branches.

pollen: Dust like grains produced on the anthers of flowers. They contain male sex cells.

pollination: Transfer of pollen from the stamens to the pistils.

post-emergence treatment: Chemical treatments applied after the plant is above ground and actively growing.

potash: A form of potassium (K) that assists in improving flowers and fruiting in plants, one of the three main ingredients in fertilizer.

pot bound: Condition where a plant has been growing in a container for so long that its roots become a dense mass that can sometimes be hard to cut into.

pre-emergence treatment: Chemical treatment applied after seeding but before plants emerge from the ground.

propagation: Creation of more plants through asexual and sexual methods such as seeds, cuttings, grafts, layering or tissue cultures.

prostrate: One of many garden terms meaning lying flatly on the ground.

pruning: Cutting select plant parts to remove dead, damaged or dying parts also used to encourage new growth and to shape a plant.

pubescent: Covered with short, soft hairs.